Chinese Dairy-Makers Move to Milk Southeast Asia Trade Ties

Tourist buy buy ice cream from an ice cream truck in downtown of Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2017. Photo: IC

Chinese dairy producers will seek to beef up their footprint in Southeast Asia to tap a potential market of 600 million people with deepened trade ties to Beijing.

Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co. Ltd. and its formidable rival, China Mengniu Dairy Co. Ltd., both announced last week their moves in the region. Yili is spending $80.6 million to acquire Thailand’s largest ice-cream maker, while Mengniu said it had kicked off commercial operations of a manufacturing facility in Indonesia — its first in Southeast Asia.